Colon And Rectal Cancer Screenings Should Start At 45, New Guidelines Say

Mito

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Colon and rectal cancer screenings should start at 45, updated guidelines say - CNN

The American Cancer Society's newly updated guidelines for colon and rectal cancer screening recommend that adults at average risk get screened starting at age 45 instead of 50, as previously advised.
The updated guidelines come on the heels of what seems to be a rise in colorectal cancer among younger adults.

Published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians on Wednesday, the updated guidelines also indicate that there are six screening test options for adults, ranging from noninvasive stool tests to visual exams like colonoscopy, depending on the preference of the patient and availability of the test.

After declining overall from 1970 to 2004, colon and rectal cancer mortality rates among 20- to 54-year-olds in the United States increased by 1% annually from 2004 to 2014, according to a study published last year in the medical journal JAMA.

“In people born more recently, they're at four times the risk for rectal cancer than people born in the '50s (at the same age), for example, and double the risk of colon cancer," he said. "It's what we call a birth cohort effect. Nobody knows why really clearly, and that's a big area of interest, but nobody's questioning that it's happening."
 
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Mito

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“The US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF), an independent panel of experts funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), made the official declaration to lower the age of screening for colon and rectal cancers from 50 to 45 after informally recommending it back in October.

It also said all adults aged 45 to 75 should be screened for colorectal cancer, updating its 2016 guidelines and aligning its official recommendations with those that the American Cancer Society issued in 2018. The new recommendations were published in an editorial in JAMA Network. The official recommendation requires insurers to cover preventive procedures such as colonoscopies and stool tests designed to detect colon cancer in early stages, the paper’s authors said.”

 

tankasnowgod

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Colon and rectal cancer screenings should start at 45, updated guidelines say - CNN

The American Cancer Society's newly updated guidelines for colon and rectal cancer screening recommend that adults at average risk get screened starting at age 45 instead of 50, as previously advised.

I'm sure that Roar of Wolverine would disagree....


So the question here is, which one carries the greatest risk of actually happening to you in your lifetime? Especially between the age of fifty to sixty?

Reported in this study from 2006; “The perforation rate reported from colonoscopies was 1 in 1000 procedures, and ‘serious complications’ occurred in 5 in 1000”. According The Annals Of Internal Medicine’s report on colonoscopies, an estimated 70,000 (0.5%) will be injured or killed by a complication related to this procedure. This figure is 22% higher than the annual deaths from colorectal cancer itself – the very disease the device was designed to prevent.

The average age for developing colorectal cancer is 71 [source]. The medical industry recommends screening starting at the age of 50 and as low as 45 for African-Americans. So, for the first couple of decades, you are risking your life with a dangerous, invasive procedure to diagnose a disease that is far less of a risk at that age than the odds of being injured by the screening device. I could stop right there, because that should be enough to make a critical thinker forget about this barbaric diagnostic tool, at least until the age of 65. But, there is more – a whole lot more to consider, which leads me to believe we should search to discover a safer and more effective tool.

Anyway, the idea of a test for a disease when you have no symptoms is insane. The larger the net you cast, the more false positives you get.

And a test certainly shouldn't be used for "screening" when it isn't benign in the first place.

They should never start at any specific age. They should only (possibly) be done if there is sufficient reason to suspect colon cancer. At the very least, the sane thing to do would be to raise the suggested age to something like 65, which is much closer to the average age it develops.

Of course, since this revision would put about 10 Million more Americans into the "recommended screening" category basically overnight, this just might be another short term cash grab from the Medical Cartel.
 
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